How Stormy Daniels Sees It Ending

The long afterlife of a forgettable fling with a reality-television personality.

- By Olivia Nuzzi

Stormy Daniels saged the room and shuffled the oracle deck. It was the evening of April 1, and the woman at the center of the legal drama that led to the first criminal indictment of a U.S. president had agreed to ask the guides for help to see more clearly the past, the present, and what she calls “the potential or likely outcome.” Daniels doesn’t claim to be a fortune teller. “Nobody can predict the future,” she said. “We all have free will.” But she can for sure identify fortune’s fool.

She raised her hands and pressed the empty space between her palms. She spoke quietly. “What can you tell Olivia about Donald Trump?”

She waited for a moment. Nothing. “What the fuck?” she said. “That’s weird.” She was having trouble connecting to the realm of the spirits.

She shuffled the deck again. There. Between her palms, the force field of energy swelled. She dealt the cards. As if by magic, the room shifted. My ears began to ring. Tension spread across my forehead. My eyes filled with tears. I looked across the table and met the dealer’s gaze. She was crying too. The cards confirmed what she already knew.

She looked down. First, she saw the past. “This is the unity card,” she said. “It’s normally a very beautiful card. It means that everything is connected.” But not today. When the card landed on the table, it was upside down. “Reversed, it means everything is coming apart.”